Broadening the Path to Engineering (The Huffington Post)

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In an opinion piece published by The Huffington Post, Associate Professor of Engineering Vicki May says the traditional approach to attracting young people to the field of engineering may be too narrow.

She points to the accomplishment of William Kamkwamba ’14, who built a windmill that brought electricity to his impoverished village in Malawi. While lacking access to math and science classes, “William forged his own path to engineering,” May writes.

“While I agree that math and science are important tools for engineers and a way for us to attract many students to engineering (in fact, my love for math is what drew me to engineering), I can’t help but wonder how many students we are losing along this narrow path; students with weak backgrounds in math and science (from developing countries or poor communities), or students who simply don’t find math and science classes interesting and thus dismiss engineering as a career,” she writes.

May is a Dartmouth Public Voices fellow.

Read the full opinion piece, published 3/11/14 by The Huffington Post.

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